Amika Mobile Blog

An enterprise typically has a myriad of networks including: a LAN for its desktops and servers;  a WiFi network for its users to wander the facilities with laptops, ePads and Smartphones that sometimes browse WiFi; its VoIP network that is linked to some carrier network for inbound/outbound calling; a Public Address (PA) System for announcements; a Paging network; an email system; social networks like Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn; camera monitoring networks; access control systems; fire monitoring systems; etc. It is thus no surprise that an organizational critical and emergency system cannot assume that all users can only be reached through SMS, email or Voice.  As such, in an emergency First Responders agree that the enterprise needs to leverage all its networks to deliver critical and emergency alerts to targeted groups or en masse paying special attention to all the personal mobile devices people are bringing in.

… Sue Abu-Hakima …CEO Amika Mobile

As more and more enterprise users bring their own devices to work – BYOD – as it is commonly referred to has to be part of the set of devices that Critical & Emergency Notification Systems Alert to. At any one time, a user in the enterprise can be addressed by anywhere from 3 to 6 devices – desktop, desk phone, business mobile phone as well as digital tablet, laptop and possibly a second personal mobile phone. As such, the emergency alerting system needs to address all these user identities. Typically, the mobile devices are addressed by hard-coding email addresses and phone numbers in contacts databases. This is certainly not good enough as users cannot be tethered to their desks and the device they have currently active as the personal one, may be the only one they are carrying around. This is why auto-discovery of user devices is essential for a practical emergency alerting system.

At the most recent ASIS 2011 in Orlando, Florida a discernable shift in the market continued to occur. At ASIS 2009, many of the enquiries for critical alerting came from University and College requirements to adhere to the Clery and Higher Education Acts to ensure the safety of students on campus post Virginia Tech. At ASIS 2010, a shift in the market started with requests from other sectors such as healthcare, finance and government. This shift continued this year with three times the number of organizations approaching Amika Mobile from all sectors. Why is this requirement occurring? A number of reasons come to mind – employers have to comply with laws and want to ensure that their employees are safe from workplace violence. External threats from disgruntled individuals tend to increase in difficult times. Finally, the global unrest and threats continue to drive transportation security laws and decision makers to capabilities to ensure the safety of individuals in their facilities be they public places like airports and sports arenas or private facilities where watch lists are kept to ensure individuals that should not get access, are kept out.

… Sue Abu-Hakima …CEO Amika Mobile

Very sad story broadcast in the news today.  Eric Leighton, an 18 yr old student from a local Ottawa High School died after an explosion in shop class. Four others including the teacher were injured as the students were making BBQs and the canister exploded as the student was welding. It seems the canisters had highly combustible peppermint oil in them previously. To compound this, the school’s warning PA system failed. Today, students, teachers and school staff are walking around with mobile devices. All classrooms have telephones. All schools also have LANs with classroom computers. Any number of systems and technologies would have helped the 1600 people in the school get informed as they proceeded to safety. Instead staff had to run between classrooms and get an evacuation going. Clearly, our schools need to adopt new technologies to keep up with their students as they stay informed about everything.

…Sue Abu-Hakima, CEO Amika Mobile

It is impossible to predict where an end user will be when there is an emergency. They may be at an airport waiting for a flight, they may be visiting someone at their offices, they may be visiting a colleague at a University, they may be speaking on the telephone, they may be waiting for care at an emergency center in a hospital, etc. As such, it is impractical to rely that an emergency alerting system would always have the correct contact information whether it is an email address or phone number. This is why it is essential for alerting systems to include the auto-discovery of devices in the vicinity as part of the solution. As such, any discovered device on the network such as a Smartphone, laptop, iPad, iPod Touch, Playbook, Public Speaker or TV monitor must be alerted.  People move around and the technology must be evolved to adapt to their habits. Furthermore, a person will have many devices that can be contacted and the safest way to ensure that they get the message is not to assume one over the other but broadcast simultaneously to all.

… Sue Abu-Hakima …CEO Amika Mobile

Utilities, Shopping Centers, Airports, Colleges and Universities typically have their own security. In addition to this, it is important to coordinate with local police, fire and EMS services. Again, in disparate systems such as those used on Sept 11 in 2001, emergency communication interoperability was found to be a huge problem. For this reason thousands lost their lives including entire fire, EMS and police detachments. Today’s technologies make it much easier to communicate in emergencies over a number of layers including WiFi, SMS, Twitter, Facebook, Email, Paging Systems, Public Speakers, etc. Coordination with First Responders is key and will result in saving lives both at the facility where the emergency occurred, the nearby community as well as with First Responders.  

… Sue Abu-Hakima …CEO Amika Mobile

Often a community is formed around a power, water or nuclear utility or around a college or university campus, shopping center, etc. When an emergency occurs, it is very important to alert and inform individuals within a geographic area. This can be achieved through Community Portals where end users sign-up to receive alerts or it could be achieved through technologies where alerts are sent to a set of devices within a particular geography once an auto-discovery of those devices is achieved over Internet or WiFi networks.  

… Sue Abu-Hakima …CEO Amika Mobile

Mobility continues to grow exponentially. Indeed, the latest numbers show that more laptops than desktops are sold. Also 4 Billion people now have mobile phones. That is two thirds of the world’s population! As such, emergency management and alerting cannot ignore mobile users. Systems must have the capability to pop up alerts on laptops and reach out through WiFi or cellular networks to the mobile phone users.

… Sue Abu-Hakima …CEO Amika Mobile

Many users are walking around with mobile devices today – the latest figures show that 4.1 Billion people have mobile phones. Couple that with the fact that more laptops than desktops are sold now with the 2009 figures showing over 177M sold, it is clear that the world is more mobile than ever. This means that people are often engrossed  while they are moving about on their mobile devices. This is why emergency notification systems cannot ignore WiFi as a student in residence on a campus in the basement is more likely to get a WiFi alert than an SMS alert.  

 … Sue Abu-Hakima …CEO Amika Mobile

Very often one is working on a desktop or a laptop on 4 or 5 applications with several documents open. Most studies have shown that people ignore fire alarms and loud speakers especially as they are listening to music and busy working.  A very effective means is to interrupt the users on the desktop, laptop or SmartPhone with a Pop-up alert with the notification of the emergency as well as the graphics associated with that. Most Pop-ups do not allow the user to continue until the emergency is cleared. Even if the user gets very annoyed, they are likely to at least put their head up from the cubicle and ask what is going on!

.      … Sue Abu-Hakima …CEO Amika Mobile

In an emergency situation, it is essential to account for everyone on the premises. This is straightforward in a situation where there is strong access control and the facility is not an open campus, hospital, sporting arena, airport, etc. However, in public venues a combination of location-based information and 2-way situational awareness is essential. People can be located through devices on WiFi or carrier networks through reverse 911 and they can be targeted with very specific messages that can request a response if they are conscious.

.      … Sue Abu-Hakima …CEO Amika Mobile

Very often in an emergency where a full evacuation of a building or campus is required by First Responders, there is a requirement to ensure that everyone is out and safe. What happens if someone is in a basement in a campus with 20 or 30 buildings that need evacuation? This person needs to be alerted in an emergency. Loudspeakers may reach them – however, they more than likely have nice headphones blasting great music in their ears. In the event that they get a Pop-up alert on their desktop or SmartPhone – they may realize there is indeed an emergency. What if they cannot get out? They need to provide a response to an alert. In the Industry, this is known as a 2-way communication which provides situational awareness - where they get an alert and they respond to it. It could be an SMS alert – so they need 2-way SMS. It could be email, it could be a desktop or laptop Pop-up – regardless, they need to let the First Responders know they are trapped.  Not all solutions provide this, only well-architected ones.      … Sue Abu-Hakima …CEO Amika Mobile

A key priority for public safety is how to deal with all the transient users on mobile devices whose contact information is not known a priori. At an airport where thousands arrive and fly out, at a sporting event  where tens of thousands watch the game, at a campus where people visit on laptops and mobile phones, at a hospital where people come and go, at a shopping center where people pass through, etc. etc. One of the key areas mass notification solutions have ignored is WiFi. Users carry devices enabled by WiFi and somehow all emergency alerts need to reach them without delivering spam. A challenge indeed - but doable as demonstrated by the Amika Mobile platform.       … Sue Abu-Hakima, CEO Amika Mobile

Last year I wrote several posts about Emergency Mass Notification and what to look for. There are 2 clear approaches to this problem, the herd seems to gravitate towards the solution where users identify themselves for emergency alerts in a database. DHS has already shown that Opt-In alerting where users sign up only nets about 2% of those who need to be alerted. So, how will we alert the 30,000 or so students on campus of an emergency if only 600 of them sign up? How do we keep those database records up to date? And how do we alert the other 29,400 people? This is where we clearly need to move away from the herd providing these solutions and use intelligent means to auto-discover the population that needs to be alerted and what devices they need to be alerted on.    … Sue Abu-Hakima …CEO Amika Mobile

Twitter is the latest social media phenom that allows  users to broadcast messages en masse to mobile phones through SMS. Can it be relied on for emergency alerting. Recall that the channel for the alerts is still SMS and carriers do not provide channel or timestamp guarantees to be received for SMS. As such, a tweet can  be received like an SMS up to days later depending on the carrier prioritization. As such, those implementing emergency alerting need to be careful that they provide as many alerting channels as they can - WiFi, SMS, Email, Web, Twitter, FaceBook, Voice, etc. This is especially important on college and university campuses where users are on any or many of these channels at once! ……………. Sue Abu-Hakima, CEO Amika Mobile.